


Brotherly

by yuletide_archivist



Category: The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-23
Updated: 2008-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-25 07:28:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1638932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A good old-fashioned family Christmas, Dresden-Raith style.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brotherly

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to hikaridonya for reading this over! Any botched details are my fault, not hers.
> 
> Written for Nightwalker

 

 

"We're spending Christmas together," I told my brother firmly.

There's one thing I should mention here: vampires don't celebrate Christmas, as a rule. 

The Black Court have always had a good reason for lying low at that time of the year; being vulnerable to holy symbols means that it's not especially profitable to prance around when they're scattered in abundance on every street corner. The White Court's reasoning is less obvious, but then, we have a reputation for subtlety. While it seems that Christmas causes plenty of undue stress and familial tension, the fact is that it brings people together, people who are determined to get along for one day even if they avoid each other for the rest of the year. Those who love each other tend to express it and think about it more during the holidays, meaning that that we of the White Court have to be extra careful who we shake hands with in December. 

And no, House Skavis is not the cause of seasonal depression. I'm sure my cousins there wish it was true, but it's not. Suicide rates don't go up in December and January; that's an urban myth. Look it up.

Now the Red Court is another matter entirely. Understandably, the vampires who are vulnerable to sunlight celebrate the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year, in true courtly fashion. This means that they're generally well-fed and somnolent by the time Christmas Day comes along, and so they don't have the opportunity to throw another of their extravagant parties. 

This year I wasn't planning to attend the Red Court's Solstice Gala, primarily because any member of the White Court would be murdered on sight. And I knew Harry wouldn't have anything better to do, because as he'd told me, Murphy was working a twenty-four hour shift in order to avoid her own family gathering, the Carpenters would be visiting out-of-state relatives, Susan was, well, wherever she was, and most of Harry's other acquaintances either weren't big on Christmas or had tried to decapitate him at some point, severely limiting his options.

"What, you're not having a happy Raith family Christmas?" Harry asked, incapable as usual of being anything other than snide.

"Let's see," I said. "A puppetmaster father turned marionette, a power-mad sister, and me, a black sheep among vampires. Sounds like a thrill a minute. I did send something to Inari and Jake, though," I added, lest Harry start thinking I was a cold-hearted bastard. "But you're the only family in the area who acknowledges me as such." Except, of course, when Lara wanted something from me.

"Kind of a shame," Harry commented. "I bet Lara makes way better roast beef and Yorkshire pudding than I do."

"Yorkshire pudding? When did you acquire a touch of class?" I asked. "I thought you'd be serving baked beans and Coke, as usual."

"Which is exactly why I said Lara's would be better," said Harry. 

"Oh, I don't know," I said, flashing Harry what he'd occasionally called my walking toothpaste advertisement grin. "I've gotten used to low class cuisine."

"Like hell you have. I've seen your apartment," said Harry. 

"Hey, you realize this whole conversation is ten times more hilarious given that I don't eat food?"

"Somehow I managed to catch the irony, subtle as it was."

"You know me," I said cheerfully. "Subtle's my middle name."

"Subtle like a brick wall across a freeway. A brick wall with Thomas Raith printed across it in bright green paint," Harry replied, prone as he was to hyperbole as long as it was sufficiently insulting. Sometimes I love my baby brother.

"Look who's talking," I retorted. "And it'd be neon lettering, by the way."

"You just can't let Vegas outdo you," Harry said, then cursed. "Hang on." He wrenched the Blue Beetle's steering wheel around yet again, and the stilt-legged construct that had been trying to grab us for the last ten minutes finally got its legs tangled enough that it fell over.

And so the plans for a Raith-Dresden Christmas were born, as most of our plans were, in the middle of a fight that could've come straight out of a bad urban fantasy novel. Except those had cooler cars.

***

I was one of the few creatures, earthly or otherwise, who could enter Harry Dresden's excruciatingly humble abode without asking for explicit permission each time, thanks to the crystal he'd given me that would bring down the wards long enough to let me in. Naturally, I took advantage of (some more uncharitable souls might have said "abused") this privilege whenever I could. On Christmas Day I did so at three in the afternoon, bringing a brightly-wrapped package and a blast of Chicago winter air with me.

The cat sauntered up to me the moment the cold had receded and sat down in front of my feet, staring up at me.

"Hey, Mister," I said. We had a professional understanding, Mister and I. Cats and White Court vampires are more similar than most would think.

He kept on staring for another five seconds while I watched him warily, wondering if he would exercise his feline right to behave in a random manner, and attack me. Then he stood up and strolled into the kitchen.

At last I knew what he was after. "No one's fed you today?" I asked, following him. I still remembered where Harry kept everything, so I put the package down on the counter, then got out the cat food and poured a generous helping into Mister's bowl. He gave an imperious sniff and dismissed me with a flick of his tail. While I was at it, though, I figured I would go on sharing a room with His Majesty for a minute longer as I fetched the dog food to fill Mouse's bowl, which was empty just as Mister's had been.

As I filled the dog dish that was about the size of the average punch bowl at the White House Christmas dinner, it hit me. Why hadn't the animals been fed? And why hadn't Mouse greeted me at the door?

The only logical explanation was that Harry had been called out on a job. But I was a vampire, which meant that once I put my mind to it, I could tell that Harry was still home. Still in his room, as a matter of fact, and Mouse was with him. Harry was muttering to himself, though even I couldn't hear what he was saying from my vantage point in the kitchen.

Concerned, I shoved the giant bag of dog chow back into the cabinet beneath the sink and went to find out what was up. As I drew closer to the bedroom, I could hear Harry's mumbling. I could also sense his state of mind, an unnecessary exercise of my powers because what he was saying would have made his mood clear to an idiot monkey: "Worse than dying," Harry said under his breath, and groaned.

I opened the bedroom door. I had to hand it to him, he made an effort. Harry sat up in bed with his eyes closed, belatedly raising a hand and fluttering it weakly at me. "Just kill me now. Spare me the torture." I cleared my throat. He opened his eyes, which were red and puffy, as was his nose. Somehow, the greatest wizard of our time had caught a common cold. "Oh. Thomas." 

"You look like shit," I said.

"Thanks," said Harry. "I needed you to point that out for me." His wit became even more acerbic when he was stressed. 

"You sound like shit, too," I pointed out.

He groaned and collapsed back into a horizontal position. Mouse, who seemed to be standing vigil by the bed, woofed comfortingly and licked Harry's elbow. "So I guess I can't talk either one of you into killing me," said Harry.

"Probably not," I said, and Mouse woofed again.

"Some friends you are." Harry turned over and buried his face in the pillow.

"I'm the best brother you've ever had," I said. "Don't lie."

"You're the only one."

"Still."

I'd never thought I'd hear the infamous Harry Dresden whining, but even incredibly sexy, powerful vampires can be proven incorrect once in a long while. "Why are you here?" Harry whined, pulling the duvet over his head.

"Um. Our plans?" I tried, and Harry didn't react. "December twenty-fifth? Good old-fashioned family Christmas? Ringing any bells? Silver ones?"

"I didn't say yes to that," Harry protested, voice muffled by the pillow. He pushed the duvet down and turned over to give me a look of long suffering.

"You didn't say no, either," I pointed out.

He rolled his eyes at me, and then took a break for a coughing fit. I stood there and watched, wondering after a minute or so whether he was going to stop at any point. He did after another minute had passed. "Thanks for the help," he rasped.

"What was I supposed to do?" I asked, reasonably enough. "Stick my arm down your throat and scratch the itch?" 

"It's the brotherly thing to do," Harry informed me.

"No, the brotherly thing is to get up and celebrate Christmas." I tugged at the covers. He tugged back with a surprising amount of strength given his condition. But I was still a vampire, capable of beating him any day of the year in a contest based on pure physical merit. I pulled the duvet off of him and dropped it on the floor. "I brought you a present," I said. "And I'll make you some tea."

"I don't want tea," said Harry, curling into a ball in the middle of the mattress. "I want to wallow in my misery and then die. Alone."

"You can wallow in your misery and die in the living room with me," I said, and poked him. "Up."

I managed to coax, cajole, and bully him out of bed and into a sweatshirt and matching pants. He looked like a zombified jogger. "I brought It's A Wonderful Life," I said, as I prodded him into the living room and onto the sofa. Mouse followed along, keeping an eye on Harry until his sensitive nose picked up the aroma of dog food in the kitchen. At that point he gave me a nod, as though to say that he trusted me to keep everything under control, and trotted off to eat. Harry's got some strange pets.

"One problem," Harry replied, sprawling across the couch. His long legs stretched all the way to the armrest at the other end. "I don't have a television."

"No problem." I'd taken that into consideration. Any electronic appliance that remained in Harry's vicinity for more than an hour or two tended not to survive the experience. "I've got a portable TV and an old-school VCR in the car. It's an old one, so as long as you don't fling any spells around, it should be fine." Older equipment actually stood up to Harry's magical aura for longer, while anything digital was doomed.

"You have a car?"

"I bought a BMW," I said, rather smugly. "Now we can be bad urban fantasy heroes in _style._ "

"We?" Harry gave a laugh that was more like a cough. "I'd kill it."

Yet again, I'd thought of everything. "It's an old model. How much do you think hair stylists make?"

"More than they should, in your case," Harry mumbled. In the true spirit of cranky, asocial wizards everywhere, he rolled over and buried his face in the couch cushions.

I went and got his present from the kitchen counter and tucked it into the crook of his arm. "I bought you something."

"How nice. I'll open it when I reacquire the will to live."

"Once I make you some tea, you'll be back on your feet in no time," I promised him.

"I don't have any teabags."

"Okay, soup."

"Nope."

"Not even condensed?" I asked, appalled.

"No," Harry groaned.

"Right, I'll just go boil some water, and." I paused. "Put something in it. I'll figure it out."

Harry let out a series of syllables that went something like this: "Hrrrgbnnghm." I took it as an affirmative, and returned to the kitchen for the third time to work some magic, metaphorically speaking.

***

As it turned out, the only warm food available was a can of Spaghetti-Os. I warmed it up anyway and slopped it into a bowl, carrying it out to Harry, who hadn't moved. "Café Thomas, now open for business," I said, pronouncing my name the way my clients did: 'Toe-moss.' "No, Mouse, this isn't for you. Hey!" Mouse, who stood about as tall as the average draft horse, took a huge gulp of Spaghetti-Os straight from the bowl, wagging his tail when he was done as though he'd performed some life-saving service by devouring the food I'd prepared so lovingly for my brother.

Eying the bowl dubiously, I said, "Um, Harry. Bad news about dinner."

"I didn't want it anyway."

When I looked at him, Mouse cocked his head. "Fine," I told him. "It doesn't matter. I'm making him eat, come hell or high dogs, all right?"

Mouse gave me a genial doggy shrug and accompanied me on my way to fetch another bowl and the Spaghetti-Os that hadn't fit in the first one. Then I walked back into the living room, my enthusiasm for the holiday somewhat diminished, while my determination to make Harry at least a tiny bit jollier continued unabated.

"Harry," I wheedled, having successfully avoided any canine attempts to purloin the latest serving of canned pasta. I'd also donned my customary pair of gloves in case of accidental skin contact, although my Hunger didn't seem too interested in Harry's lethargy. "Come on. Just a bite?"

"Coming from a vampire?" Harry grumbled, dragging himself reluctantly into a sitting position.

"I'm not that kind of vampire," I said, waggling my eyebrows at him.

He squinted at me. "It's not fair that you can be so ridiculous and _still_ have women falling all over you."

"It's a curse," I said, clutching my heart melodramatically. "Now eat the Os."

Harry obeyed, complaining under his breath the whole time. Mouse looked disappointed, but didn't try again to eat Harry's food. With that settled, I started bustling back and forth between the BMW and the car, setting up the television and VCR as far from the couch as they could get while remaining within viewing range. It was a delicate balance, but I felt I'd struck it perfectly. When I came inside for the last time, I spotted a small Christmas tree over in the far corner and frowned. "Was that there before?"

"What?" Harry asked. His eyes were closed, and the bowl was on the couch beside it. Mouse was licking it clean.

"The tree." I walked over to examine it, admiring the colorful lights that didn't seem to be plugged into an outlet. In fact, they didn't seem to be on a cord at all.

"Oh, that. The, uh. Cleaning service brought it," Harry said, wording the statement carefully.

"Oh," I said, understanding at last. I'd suspected for a long time that Harry had some supernatural housekeepers, and now I realized they had to be fairies or the like, who would cease tidying up the place if they were mentioned directly. "How sweet of them."

"Sure," said Harry, sniffling and wiping his nose on the sleeve of his shirt. I made a face. "What?" he asked defensively. "Not like anyone else is going to wear it."

"Ugh," I proclaimed. "Time to let the good folks of Bedford Falls take our minds off how disgustingly sick you are, in more than one manner of speaking."

"If only," said Harry.

***

I should have known that an uneventful day spent with my brother would have been a miracle. But I guess I thought Christmas might give us a free miracle pass, admit two. Even the crazies running around Chicago had to take a day off once a year.

Apparently December twenty-fifth was not that day.

We were only five minutes into the film when there was an urgent knock on the door. My face fell, and I gave the door a despairing look. We hadn't even made it past the part with the stars, angels, whatever they were, talking to each other. "Maybe it's Federal Express," I suggested. "You know how they get when you have to sign for a package."

Harry, in his most energetic move of the day, staggered to his feet. "Or it's trouble," he said grimly.

I put the movie on pause, with no hope that we'd get back to it before it came to an automatic stop. Mouse and I both crowded around Harry as he trudged over to answer the door. "You're not in any shape for this," I said, futile as it was to argue with Harry about anything. I've met blocks of cement less hard-headed. 

Harry glanced at me. "Does it matter?"

I sighed. The answer was no, it didn't.

First he checked the identity of our caller with a quick spell that made him sneeze violently. "Maybe you've become allergic to magic," I said.

"If that's really the case, I expect you to kill me when I get back from this case," he said. Then he cast the spell that would take down the wards and pulled the door open. "Hey, Murph."

"Dresden-" she began to say, and then did a double take. "What the hell happened to you?"

"I caught a cold," said Harry, snuffling and blinking his watery red eyes to prove his point.

Murphy stared at him. "You never get sick."

"Untrue," I broke in. "Clearly. Now shut the door before he catches pneumonia."

Murphy recovered enough to shoot me a wry look, though she complied, stepping indoors to close the door behind her. "I didn't know you had such a maternal streak, Raith."

"Fraternal," I said, and gave her that charming Colgate smile. "It only surfaces when it perceives some threat to my idiot brother."

"Hey," said Harry, in half-hearted protest.

Murphy's expression turned serious. "It's going to have a real problem with me, then," she said. "We've got an issue up on the North Side. Some guy's barricaded himself in with some hostages."

"So?" I interrupted. "Don't you have SWAT teams for that?"

The serious expression hardened, and I was reminded for the millionth time that Murphy was a force to be reckoned with. "Don't screw with me. I know which cases need to come here and which ones don't. Got it?"

"Got it," I said meekly.

"They're calling him a headcase," Murphy continued, shifting her eyes back to Harry. "We got one call through to him and he claimed to be a powerful sorcerer, so of course he's insane. But the thing is-"

"The thing is," Harry finished for her, "you don't think he's crazy."

Murphy nodded. "Exactly. I don't know for sure, but there's something off about him. Not headcase-off, the other kind."

"Why does this scream 'trap for Harry Dresden, the only wizard who advertises in the Yellow Pages'?" I wondered aloud.

"Because it probably is," said Harry. "I'm on it, Murph."

I spoke up. " _We're_ on it, you mean." Before he could refuse my assistance, I put a gloved hand on his shoulder. "It's Christmas, Dresden. We're spending it together whether you like it or not."

***

That was how we ended up in the Blue Beetle, trailing after Murphy's squad car like a lost puppy. Mouse, the closest thing we had to an actual puppy, seemed pensive in the back seat. I, on the other hand, was feeling a little put-out. "Why couldn't we take the Beamer?"

"We can't risk a breakdown," Harry informed me. He was wearing his duster, the sweatshirt with snot on the sleeve and a pair of jeans, along with his entire arsenal of deadly jewelry and the staff tucked between him and the door. "The Beetle's used to me. I know it's not going to fall apart in the middle of the street the second I do something magical."

"Yeah, because you stuck some extra glue on next time," I muttered rebelliously. "So why can't I drive?"

Harry mustered up a faint smile, no doubt induced by the ten Tylenol tablets I'd forced on him before we left the apartment. "It's my car."

I couldn't argue with that, so I bypassed the superficial arguments in order to delve to the heart of the matter. "Harry, seriously. Let's go home. We don't even have to watch It's A Wonderful Life. We could watch A Christmas Carol instead, or the one where the kid shoots his eye out." The title eluded me for the moment.

He turned his head to give me a quizzical look after that last one. "That's supposed to be a Christmas movie?"

"I've seen weirder," I said. "We can watch Die Hard for all I care, as long as we go home and let the police do their job. You're a wreck. After all this time fighting gods and demons and Faerie Queens or whatever, some third-rate conjurer's going to tear you apart, and then I'll be left to put the pieces back together."

"Thomas," said Harry, as we sped through a stop light in the wake of Murphy's siren. I was glad that he couldn't take his eyes off the road right then, because his voice, hoarse and gravelly though it might have been, was intense enough. "You know in the movie we were watching, the main character-"

"George Bailey," I supplied. I only knew this because I had become something of a classical movie connoissieur, for the same reason I watched a lot of artistic independent films and romantic comedies: to discuss them with my almost exclusively female clientele.

"He wishes he'd never been born, and then they give him a chance to see what that'd be like. A world without him."

"Right," I said, mildly impressed that a man who couldn't own a television without frying it knew that much.

"A world without me wouldn't be here," said Harry, his tone somber.

He wasn't bragging. The world, at least the world as we knew it, wouldn't have existed in its current form without Harry Dresden around to fling himself into the jaws of death for its sake time and time again. Maybe someone else would have stepped up to the plate. Who knows? It wouldn't have been me. "I know," I said quietly.

We pulled up behind a whole fleet of police cars and fire trucks and goodness knew what else. Harry opened his door and I opened mine, and we stepped into the freezing winter air. Mouse bounded into the front and out to land beside Harry. I went around to make sure Harry was all right, or as close to it as he would get with his formidable immune system being assaulted by an even more formidable virus. 

My brother seemed about to say something else to me, but then he drew in a sharp breath. "What?" I asked, alarmed, stepping closer so I could catch him if he passed out or started speaking in tongues.

And then Harry Dresden, wizard extraordinaire, sneezed all over the front of my shirt.

***

 _I can't get you inside. I don't have the authority anymore,_ Murphy had told us, quite pointedly. We knew what that meant: we had to find our own way in, somehow bypassing the hordes of cops and FBI agents surrounding the house. As Harry wasn't a master of cloaking spells (more a master of the kind of spells that would signal our presence to everyone within a five-mile radius), that meant going about it the old-fashioned way. It also meant leaving Mouse behind with Murphy, because he wasn't a breed of dog that was generally considered suitable for sneaking. So it was Harry and I on our own, with only me left to stand between him and certain death. I didn't care for the feeling.

"We're kind of old to be playing spies, aren't we?" I said as we circled the police barricade.

"Cops and Robbers next," said Harry. "Do kids still play that?"

"Beats me," I said with a shrug. Then something tingled at the edge of my awareness. It was tricky picking any one mind out of the sea of high emotion, but I had practice. I could do it. "Patrol units," I hissed, and we strolled away from the barrier, the very picture of nonchalance. The men evidently weren't any who recognized Harry, because we didn't even register on their radar.

"You know," I remarked. "We might have planned a little further before driving out here."

"Uh-huh," said Harry. "I'm not big on planning right now."

"Just now?" I asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Don't go there," he said wearily. "All right. We're going to need a cloaking spell."

"You sure you're up for that?" My eyebrow remained arched, as I felt my expression of incredulity would probably be appropriate for at least another couple minutes.

"Thomas, I'm not up to lighting a candle," Harry informed me. "But I have to do it."

I'd wanted a Christmas miracle, and this was it. The spell held, and we passed unseen beyond the barricade. The cop guarding the side door was ridiculously easy to distract, stepping away to investigate when I threw a rock in the other direction. We ended up in a laundry room, and the second Harry dropped the spell, he started to sneeze. Repeatedly. I don't mean two or three times in quick succession; I mean he sneezed about fifty times in under a minute. He held his nose to silence each one after the first, and it seemed more and more likely that his head would explode.

"Maybe you are allergic to magic," I said, keeping a wary distance. The work I'd gone through to clean my shirt the first time had not been pleasant. "What if that happens every time you cast a spell?"

"Let's cross that bridge when we come to it," said Harry.

"Good plan." Unspoken was the possibility that the bridge would be on fire or crumbling into the canyon below at the time.

We crept through the house, zeroing in on the room where the hostages were being held. It was easy enough for both of us; the hostages radiated fear, while their captor radiated magic. Bottom tier sorcerer, definitely, but we couldn't get careless. Life with all my siblings had taught me that much.

He was holed up in what looked like a playroom, full of toys and art supplies and half-finished Christmas crafts. We could see the entire scene from behind one of the double doors that had been left halfway open. The hostages were huddled on the floor: a single woman, a teenage girl, and a pair of younger children. I groaned silently. Harry wasn't big on planning, as we'd previously noted, and anything in him that vaguely resembled caution was shot to hell the instant women or children became involved. I nudged him, blocking him with my elbow just in case he decided to charge.

Harry shook his head, his teeth gritted. Being sick gave him a touch of common sense, at least. He pointed at me, and then into the room, where our villain was busy playing the part of the ominous warlock, complete with long black cape and outrageous leather boots with straps up to his knees. I nodded, hoping I got what he meant, and then I zipped past the doors with my superhuman speed, purposely placing myself in the path of any spells the would-be wizard might fling at his hostages. 

The guy took a second to absorb the fact that I was there, and then he began to laugh, sounding exactly like the bad guy from a Disney flick. "Finally, Harry Dresden! You've arrived!"

"Um," I said. Score one for me when I'd called this a trap, even if it was the worst trap ever executed. "No, sorry. I'm actually-"

I didn't get the chance to say my name, which was a good thing, since Lara would have killed me if she'd heard me spreading the Raith name around at the scene of a crime. Harry burst through the doors, pointing his staff and coughing "Forzare!" The man was slammed back against the far wall, and Harry started sneezing uncontrollably. The kids shrieked, the woman dragging them as far as she could from the fight. Smart lady.

Our opponent recovered quickly and screamed something unintelligible before even I could reach him. Harry's spell hadn't been as strong as usual, for obvious reasons. And Harry convulsed, no longer sneezing but letting out an unearthly, ululating wail. I'd never heard him make a sound like that before, and I was too stunned for a moment to move. What the hell had this hack done to him? Surely the cold wasn't affecting Harry _that_ badly.

The man was cackling again, but not for long. I sped toward him and slammed him against a wall, my gloved hand pressing on his throat. "What did you do?" I demanded.

He gurgled and gave a wheezing laugh. "Nothing... you can do now," he gasped. "Made him... sick... tied spell to... the virus..."

That was all I needed to hear. I crushed his windpipe, my disdain overwhelming even my inner demon's urge to feed on him. He fell to the floor, and that should have been the end of the problem. He wasn't talented enough to have a death curse or even to know what a death curse was, although in retrospect I suppose I was taking a chance on that assumption. But I was right; nothing happened.

Nothing.

The eerie keening from my brother didn't stop, and he was wreaking havoc on the other side of the playroom, the one where the women and kids weren't. He was swinging wildly with his staff, hard enough that he'd already slammed a hole in the wall. And the sorcerer had chosen the room well. There were no windows, no doors to the outside, no way I could signal Murphy or even the FBI for help. Once again, it was up to me to save the day.

I rapidly grasped the reason the spell hadn't been broken with the death of the incompetent who'd cast it. If he'd tied the spell to the cold virus, as he'd claimed, then it was probably self-sustaining. The virus would continue multiplying, with its new and horrifying effect taking its toll on Harry more than a running nose and headache had ever done.

An utter moron had stumbled upon a way to get at the most powerful wizard in the city; maybe in the entire country. I shuddered to think what the idea would have done in more experienced hands, and cursed the fortune that had enabled this idiot to figure it out.

"Out!" I yelled to the hostages, and the woman began shoving the kids toward the door. 

Harry got in their way, and the woman fell back with a brief scream. She only just avoided a crack from the staff, which could have killed her, judging by the damage it had been inflicting on the rest of the room. 

Great. No wonder most vampires didn't celebrate Christmas.

Only one option came to mind, and it was not an appealing one. I suspected that my Hunger had suggested it, in its own insidious, subconscious way. It was, unfortunately, the best I could come up with. I knocked Harry back with a single blow and he came at me again. _Now or never,_ I thought. Then I grabbed my brother and pinned him to the wall. I would have to feed on him.

 _Focus!_ I screamed at myself, tuning out the waves of fear emanating from the woman and the children. How easy it would be, my Hunger whispered now that it had my ear, to turn their terror into something more palatable. They would make a fine meal, a buffet laid out before me, ripe for the picking-

"No!" I snarled aloud, mentally wrenching my Hunger's jaws around. I was repulsed by what I knew I had to do, but it was the only way. There was a chance it wouldn't work, but there was also a chance that it would, in which case it would save my brother's life. I yanked off one glove, tossing it to the side, and lunged to cradle Harry's cheek in my hand. My Hunger flowed outward, eager as a racehorse kept idle in a stable for too long. It started draining the madness away, transforming it to pleasure, delighting in its newfound freedom and the way it was making Harry writhe. 

So good. Too good. The demon within me howled in savage glee as it touched a power more potent than almost anything it had ever tasted before. For the first time in months I felt truly alive, lit up like a string of Christmas lights from the inside out, just as I'd always felt with-

Justine.

I ripped the Hunger away from Harry's mind and magic and it screamed, struggling against me. I felt like a desperate toddler attempting to restrain a Rottweiler by a leash that was liable to snap at any moment. Worst of all, I _wanted_ to let go of the leash. I'd been feeding on table scraps, castoff emotions, and now I'd been presented with a ten-course feast. The notion of returning to the dregs was abhorrent.

But letting my brother die would be even more abhorrent, not to the raging, hungry side of me, but to the human side.

I stopped feeding and stumbled backward. Harry slumped to the floor, breathing evenly, the room silent except for that and the whimpers of the children. It was over. I'd won.

 _We'd_ won.

***

Harry and I returned to the apartment in triumph, with Harry in far better spirits than he had been. Along with the madness, I'd eaten the cold right out of him. We were both exhausted, but pleased that we'd made it out of the house without the cops ever realizing we were there. I'd extracted promises from the hostages that they wouldn't mention us, because the higher-ups in the police force would know Harry by his description and, by association, would know that Murphy had interfered. The hostages' word of honor was good enough. It had to be.

"Open your present already," I said, chucking it feebly at Harry from my end of the couch. Neither of us could muster enough energy to restart the movie, and besides, I thought I'd heard the sound of electronics short-circuiting as Harry walked past it and into the living room. 

"All right, all right." Harry ripped off the discount wrapping paper (in other words, a brown paper bag I'd taped shut) and opened the box. He held up the Santa Claus tie and regarded it for a moment before he spoke. "Hilarious."

"I knew you'd like it," I said.

"As it so happens, I got you something, too." Harry scrounged around between the couch cushions, and came up with a slender rectangular package. "And you thought I forgot."

"Harry, I'm touched," I cooed, surprised to find that he'd used actual Christmas paper with snowflakes printed on it. "Aw, you shouldn't have."

"I know," said Harry, as I pulled off the paper. My present was also in a box, and the look on my face was identical to the one Harry had worn a minute before. 

"Well." I stared at the bright green reindeer printed on the knee socks. They came complete with red pompom noses. "Fair's fair."

"Murphy gave them to me," said Harry helpfully. "Last year."

"Oh," I said. "Uh, thanks. I'll pass them on to someone deserving next year."

Harry started to chuckle. "Lara?"

I grinned and patted him on the back. "Only if she's been bad enough." 

Once we were done contemplating Lara's expression when she laid eyes on the Demonic Socks, as we fondly labeled them, we fell into silence for a moment. "Thomas," said Harry, and put a hand on my shoulder, careful not to touch any skin. "Thanks."

"No problem," I said, and meant it.

***

At least I meant it at the time. The next day, I wasn't so sure.

When my doorbell rang on December twenty-sixth, it took an enormous amount of effort for me to heave myself off of the couch, and even more to shuffle over to the door. I looked through the peephole to see who it was, and sighed. Then I opened the door. "Hey, Harry."

"You look like something chewed you up and spit you out," said Harry bluntly, looking me up and down, from my uncharacteristically uncoiffed yet still-stunning hair to my Armani bathrobe to my feet, which were sporting the reindeer socks Harry had given me. 

"Really," I said, sarcasm leaking from my every pore in a purely metaphorical sense. If anything had been leaking out of me at that moment, it would have been phlegm or something even less appealing. "I hadn't noticed."

"I wouldn't be worried, except I've only seen you looking this bad once," he said, and we both knew exactly when he meant without his having to say it, which was good. That wasn't a pleasant memory. "Usually you look like the god of Calvin Klein, and now you're looking more like the god of, uh."

"Clearance Wal-Mart fashion, okay," I groaned, slouching back to my nice comfortable couch. "I get it."

"So what happened to you?" Harry folded his arms and gave me a look that said he wasn't going to let me off the hook without giving him a satisfactory answer. Luckily, I had one ready.

Through gritted teeth, I said, "I caught your cold."

Harry's expectant look turned to an expression of befuddlement. "I thought viruses weren't a problem for you."

He had a point. Normally they weren't, because my Hunger was more vicious than most mundane organisms. Right now, though, the demon inside me was curled into a ball of misery, the problem exacerbated by the fact that I hadn't fed in days. I would've been grateful, but I was too busy being miserably myself. "You never thought it was weird that a cold knocked you off your feet so badly?" I demanded, then started coughing. I kept at it for about thirty seconds, and then I gave Harry a pathetic look. "Viruses usually aren't a problem for you, either."

Harry sat down in my suede armchair, and to my neverending horror, he looked more amused than sympathetic. "What goes around comes around, huh?"

"What?" I squawked.

"You yanked me out of my nice warm bed yesterday," said Harry, "so you could feed me Chef Boyardee and give me the tackiest tie ever invented."

Of course. 

I go through hell trying a) to keep my brother out of trouble, b) to haul his ass out of that trouble once he's stubbornly flung himself into it, and c) to sacrifice my own well-being in favor of his, and what does he remember? That I'd pulled him out of bed that day. 

That bastard.

"Harry," I said, dragging myself onto the arm of the couch so I could glare at him properly.

"Yes, Thomas?"

There was only one thing to do at that point, and it wasn't a particularly elegant solution. Nor was it subtle, and if my White Court relations heard about it, they'd have a coronary. Well, if they weren't vampires. As it was, they'd re-own me just so they could disown me again. But as I said, it was the only thing to do.

I sneezed on him.

 


End file.
